Culture

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• Literature Festival in London dedicated to Mehmet Aksoy 

  This year’s Huseyin Celebi Literature Festival will be held in memory of British-Kurdish filmmaker Mehmet Aksoy, who was killed by ISIS in Raqqa.
• Short film about Mother Taybet awarded a prize 

  The short film "Seven days and seven nights” dedicated to mother Taybet was awarded a prize. Mother Taybet was shot dead by Turkish police carrying out an operation in Silopi. Her lifeless body was left out on the streets for an entire week.
• Guerrillas perform Sophocles’ ‘Antigone’ amid Turkish air strikes 

  An adaptation of Sophocles’ “Antigone” was performed by a guerrilla theatre group in the mountains amid Turkish air strikes.
• Award for HDP’s Demirtaş at Slemani International Film Festival 

  Imprisoned HDP co-chair Selahattin Demirtaş has been granted the 'Ahmet Kaya Award' in the 2nd Slemani International Film Festival.
• Petition against relocation of monuments in Hasankeyf 

  Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive launched a petition campaign against relocation of monuments in Hasankeyf.
• Kurdistan Culture Week kicks off in Brussels 

  Speaking at the Kurdistan Culture Week in Brussels, President of the Flemish Parliament Jan Peumans said: "We support the freedom struggle of the Kurds in the Middle East."
• Iran closes airspace to Southern Kurdistan 

  Iran has closed its airspace to all flights to and from the Southern Kurdistan Regional Government.
• Kurdish Culture Festival kicks off in Cologne  

  The 25th International Kurdish Culture Festival has kicked off in German city Cologne with the participation of tens of thousands.
• AKP’s “genocide file” submitted to UNESCO 

  A file on the genocidal attacks in Kurdistan has been submitted to UNESCO officials in the meetings in Bern, Switzerland.
• Cologne ready for the 25th Kurdish Culture Festival 

  The 25th International Kurdish Culture Festival will kick off in Cologne on Saturday with the motto "Freedom for Öcalan, Status for Kurdistan, Freedom to the Middle East".
• The colorful Merîvan Street Theater Festival continues 

  The 12th edition of the Merîvan Street Theater Festival has left four days behind.
• Kolbers not forgotten in the Merîvan Street Theatre Festival 

  The International Street Theatre Festival held in Merîvan for the 12th time is in its third day. The festival started with a play thematising the lives of the kolbers (border porters) who are facing increasing deadly attacks by the Iranian regime.
• The ‘cursed’ stone of Kelashin 

  For centuries, the secret of the 2 meter tall inscribed stone in the Kelashin Passage, one of the most precipitous areas of the Zagros Mountains, was unknown.
• Udumbara flower seen in Urfa 

  Udumbara flower was seen on a pistachio seed in Karakoy, a district of Urfa province.
• ‘My art is my fight’ 

  Wood burning and relief artist Mehmet Selim Gökçen stated that as a Kurdish artist, he is standing against assimilation and fighting through his art.
• Elyewm: A new TV channel in Northern Syria 

  A new TV channel “Elyewm” started broadcast in Northern Syria.
• The voice of resistance: Dengê Avrîn 

  For four years Radio Dengê Avrîn (Voice of Avrîn) continues to broadcast despite Turkish attacks against Efrîn Canton.
• Van’s historic houses destroyed by Erdogan’s ‘urban progress’ 

  After surviving three large earthquakes and plundering after the Armenian Genocide, historic houses of Van are destroyed by Turkish government’s “urban progress” plans and replaced by multi storey modern buildings.
• Syriacs demand their properties back from Turkey 

  Assyrian-Syriac organisations sent a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek, demanding the return of nearly 50 properties of theirs usurped by the AKP.
• Tabqa's inhabitants revive the culture of fraternity 

  The Democratic Arab Youth Movement organised an event thematising fraternity and the common struggle between the Kurds and the Arabs, with the event being the first of its kind to be held for the last six years.
• People learning their mother tongue in their commune 

  In the Martyr Hecî Commune in a neighbourhood of Qamishlo, 50 children and 40 women are receiving Kurdish language classes.
• Destruction in Hasankeyf enters new phase 

  Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive stated that with the demolition of human formed rocks through explosives in Hasankeyf, the destruction of this 12.000 years old town at the Tigris River in the Kurdish Southeast of Turkey has entered a new phase.
• "Delila is an example with her struggle in every moment of life" 

  The Fertile Crescent Women’s Culture and Art Centre commemorated guerrilla and artist Delîla, and vowed to rekindle the path of the art of the democratic nation and a free and autonomous Kurdistan.
• “There is a profiteering and militarist attack on Hasankeyf” 

  Initiative to Keep Hasankeyf Alive activist Ercan Ayboğa protested the demolition in Hasankeyf and stressed that the State of Emergency is being used to facilitate the demolition.
• One of the richest languages in the Middle East banned 

  HPG guerrilla Piran Medya stated that after joining the guerrilla ranks he came to understand the importance and meaning of languages the more.